


Release

by ForMeToPoupon



Series: Reverb [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comedy, Cultural Misunderstandings, Erotica, F/M, Gen, Mutual Masturbation, non-consensual voyeurism???? that is not a very fun tag actually, phone sex OF THE FUTURE, poor sleep hygiene, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForMeToPoupon/pseuds/ForMeToPoupon
Summary: When Allura asked Lance to help her brainstorm ways of getting Shiro to relax on their long flight home, she could have never imagined it would end up with her dirty talking him to sleep.





	Release

**Author's Note:**

> If all this looks vaguely familiar to you, it is because this fic was posted for the last day of smutweek and almost instantly deleted.
> 
> Making this is a re-Release, as it were.

      Lance was bored. Truly, utterly, _hideously_ bored. Although he would never wish misfortune on anyone, especially his friends, he almost wished something interesting or disastrous—preferably _hilariously_ disastrous--would happen just so he’d have something to do.

     Be careful what you wish for, so the saying goes.

      

* * *

      

      

     “Lance?” Allura’s voice came through the Lion’s comm system, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, “May I ask you a question?”

     Lance smiled. Now here was his favorite distraction.

     “If the question is, ‘how do I get even cuter,’ I just have two things to say to that. One, that you asked the right person. And two, it’s impossible because you’re already the tops, babe.” He smiled and winked, which was completely lost through the audio-only connection.

     An awkward silence filled the cockpit like hydrogen fills a zeppelin. Lance cleared his throat.

     “Okay, I can tell that one fell a bit flat. What’s up?”

     “Short of physical exertion, what’s the best method to lull humans to sleep?” Allura asked.

     Lance propped his chin on fist in thought.

     “Is this about Pidge?” He asked after a half minute of consideration, “Because nothing in the world can get her to sleep when she’s wired on… wires.” And she most certainly was. She was coping with the extreme boredom of long distance space travel with alternatively breaking and fixing things around her lion, then arguing with Hunk on the open comm channel about the best methods of doing both things. Lance had learned about eight new ways to break an electromagnetic coupler through their conversations, and had no idea what to do with that knowledge.

     “It’s not for Pidge,” Allura clarified.

     “Well, I guess it varies a little for everyone, but maybe soft music?” Lance suggested, then gasped in delight as several other thoughts occurred to him at once. “Warm baths. Oh, warm baths by candlelight. Warm baths by candlelight with soft music playing. Oh! And following a strictly regimented skincare routine. But only if you follow it nightly, kind of like a ritual!” He said.

     “Assume, for a moment, that we are all stuck in lions without any of those things,” Allura said.

     “Hmm. I always fell asleep in my Math for Pilots class. Have you tried math?”

     “I think….this person… they like things like that,” Allura said slowly, as if she had honestly never considered the individual math preferences of every single one of her friends. Which she hadn’t.

     “Nobody likes math,” Lance insisted.

     “I like math.”

     “Really?”

     “I… I used to tell myself that during the advanced classes…” Allura trailed off, then thought a moment longer. “But, no, I do! In its base forms, there’s a comforting logic in it, even when nothing else in this universe seems logical.”

     “Well, if it’s comforting,” Lance said, “in absence of face serums, try reciting theorems!”

     Allura considered this wisdom for a moment.

     “You might be on to something here, Lance. Thank you!”

      

* * *

      

     Shiro grunted as his back touched down on the floor of his temporary quarters in the Black Lion. His quarters weren’t anything like a proper chamber or even a cell, they were more like a pile of junk piled up to divide a larger living space; to create a partition that allow the illusion of privacy. It was cluttered almost to the point of claustrophobia in here with the supplies needed for a year long journey. Still, it was roomier than the alternative, which was the glorified tank he had occupied while comatose. He had room to exercise here, at least.

     Sweat ran down his back. Some of it pooled on the metal beneath him, some of it dripped down through the grate. He didn’t want to think about he or the room must smell right now, or how much worse they would smell later, in the enclosed space and recycled air of the Lion.

     He grunted again as his muscles contracted and pulled him upright, completing his _nth_ sit-up of the day. He paused a moment, head propped on his knees, weary. He heard the beep of an incoming communication and waved his hand in the vague direction of the com interface to accept it.

     “Yeah?”

     “Shiro,” it was Allura’s voice. Shiro’s stomach turned. Allura had been… difficult for him to think about lately. He didn’t quite know how to interact with her yet and he really wasn’t ready to figure it out. He almost wished it had been anyone else on the other line, then he felt a flush of shame. Allura was a nice woman. He liked her just as well as any other woman he’d ever known. Hell, maybe even more. He was obviously projecting something on her—something he didn’t want to think about long enough even to name. Still, he shouldn’t let his own weird issues affect how he he treated her.

     “Allura, do you need anything?” That was good. Measured. Professional. Solicitous. Nothing there to read into at all, for him or for her.

     “Sorry to bother you, but do you like math?” she asked. Shiro was taken aback and responded before he could compose himself.

     “Allura, I know you’re not from earth but that’s kind of… That’s a…” He trailed off, then started again, candid in his surprise. “You don’t just randomly ask an Asian man if he likes math, okay?”

     “I’m sorry, Shiro. I didn’t know,” Allura’s voice was quiet and confused. She abruptly ended the call, leaving Shiro to knock his forehead against his knees.

     Great. _Great._ Now he was stinky, tired, _and_ an asshole.

      

* * *

       
  


     “Lance, Shiro doesn’t like math. I think I offended him.” Allura said by way of greeting when Lance re-opened the comm line at her urgent buzzing. He groaned.

     “You were talking about _Shiro_ earlier? Oh man, did you actually ask him if he liked math?”

     “I didn’t know it was a grave offense! You’re the one who suggested it!”

     “That’d be like him asking you if...” Lance paused a moment to think. He really didn’t have the cultural context for this. “What’s some stereotype people have about Alteans?”

     “Um,” Allura paused as she thought. Growing up in cushion of royalty had isolated her from many of the universe’s slings and arrows, but even she was not completely ignorant of galactic attitudes about Alteans “Well, the Galra seem to think we have a disproportionate affection for _Ghesnsips._ Especially Alteans of my skin tone,” She said, repressed anger slipping into her tone.

     “Imagine if he asked you if you like parsnips out of the blue, or, I don’t know” he paused for a moment, “if someone shouted ‘hey, _pachuco!’_ at me or something even though I’m Cuban and not, like, 200 years old. It’s kind of like that.”

     “ _Ghesnsips,_ not parsnips,” She corrected, stiffly.

     “Okay, let’s regroup. What do we know about Shiro?”

     “He doesn’t like to be asked if he likes--”

     “Other than that. Have we ever seen him relaxed?”

     The silence stretched as their minds stretched.

     “This one time—actually, no. He was pissed that day, not relaxed,” Lance said.

     “I think once… but that happened when he was ill,” Allura said.

     “When we were—wait...”

     “And then there was the time when, um...”

     Lance stared straight ahead, unblinking. He was _not_ expecting to get this depressed today from a single, innocent question.

     “He seemed to enjoy Monsters and Mana?” Allura said tentatively.

     “That was his clone,” Lance said. Damn it, he was gonna tear up. Shiro’s life was just too _shitty._ “Man, this is so sad. Let’s ask Keith.”

     “We can’t ask Keith!” Allura cried emphatically.

     “Why not?”

     “Because he’s the one that asked me if there were any Altean techniques for sleep, because apparently Shiro refuses to do so on his own. What does expect? For me to weave quintessence from a mile away, in my own lion?” She started speaking faster, working herself up into a fine lather of emotion, “Well, I can’t do that, Keith! Just because I can bring people back from the dead, doesn’t mean I can work miracles! And I can’t even heal full death, it’s only mostly-death! You give me a real dead person and I’d be useless! Just as I am right now!”

     “Whoa, whoa! It’s okay, Allura!” Lance said, waving his arms in supplication. The physical gesture somehow failed to communicate through the audio-only connection.

     “It’s _not_ okay! I hate feeling useless!” Allura cried.

     “No, it is! It’ll be fine! Let’s just think a little bit harder, alright? You can do anything, Allura. I truly believe that. Getting someone who’s been up for, uh--”

     “Days, maybe?”

     “--days to fall asleep can’t be so hard. I mean, he’s already probably super tired. You said exercise was out, right?”

     “He won’t _stop_ exercising, according to Keith. We have to get him to stay still.” Allura said with a sigh. Lance hummed in contemplation, sticking his tongue out between his teeth in concentration, perhaps to taste any brilliant ideas that might somehow be floating in the air.

     “How about guided meditation?”

     “What’s that?” Allura asked.

     “You say things like “Focus on your heart chakras” and stuff,” Lance explained. “I can try talking him through--”

     “No,” Allura interrupted, “it has to be me. If you get involved then Keith will know that I have no clue what to do. I _refuse_ to come off as socially inept to our current de-facto leader. Especially now since he’s taken such strides in his own social competency! Could you imagine the shame?”

     “I’m sure he wouldn’t see it that way. He obviously can’t get Shiro to take a break, either. Why don’t you ask Coran to help you? His long explanations can certainly put _me_ to sleep sometimes _._ ” Lance said.

     “No,” Allura declared firmly. “I’m doing this on my own—with your help in the concept phase, of course-- but otherwise on my own. Besides, Coran and Romelle are visiting with Hunk right now so I can’t ask him without two other people knowing what’s going on. Then Hunk would tell Pidge because Hunk tells Pidge _everything,_ then everyone would know!”

     She paused to gather her wits, and finally said, “Meditation, however, that’s doable. That’s a basic Altean skill, just the guiding part…”

     “Just say what you would be doing, if you were meditating along with him,” Lance prompted.

     “Just what I would do… Got it. Thank you, Lance!”

     The comm connection severed and Lance breathed a sigh of relief and gave himself a mental pat on the back. If there’s anything in this world that can bore someone to sleep without fail, then it’s gotta be a person with a British accent giving a series of commands in excruciating detail.

      

* * *

       
  


     Shiro had moved on to lopsided pull-ups the next time the comm sparked to life. He had found a solid bar of metal that he wedged in a corner of the lion, creating a crude pull-up bar that wouldn't win any fashion contests or pass even the laziest of OSHA inspections, but it served his purposes just fine. Besides, the worrisome wobbling added another element of challenge to his workout. The problem was how his palm sweated, making him slip off the bar before he could pull himself up more often than not. He wiped his hand on his pants and accepted the call before hoisting himself up again.

     “Shiro? Are you still mad?” Allura again. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be. Why would the universe grant him a single break.

     “I wasn’t mad in the first place. It was an innocent question, and not an unreasonable one to ask an astronaut. Sorry if it… It probably sounded like I was angry. I wasn’t. Sometimes I don’t realize how snippy I sound when I’m tired,” he explained.

     And that did sound logical. He was just tired. That’s why his heart jumped and his guts twisted when he contemplated interacting with Allura. That’s why he didn’t even want to think about it. He was tired, and thinking along those lines just made him either more tired. That’s all. He dropped to his feet, giving up on the pull-up bar for now.

     “Yes, tired!” She said, brightly. “I thought I might help you with that. How about we try meditating together?”

      _Hell no._

     “Uh, about that…” Shiro said, mind casting around for an excuse that won’t be entirely too damning. He paced around his small enclosure, and eyed the pull up bar again, as if its slipperiness was the cause of all his troubles. It was hard enough to do pull-ups one handed, and the bare piece of metal’s insistence on being a bare piece of metal was not helping.

     “I find meditation easiest in low-G environments, so I could ask Keith to adjust the arti-grav, then we can--”

     “Allura,” Shiro interrupted. He signed. His brain wasn’t working well enough to come up with an excuse on the fly, so he’d just have to lay it out and hope she’d accept it without pressing too far. “I know you mean well but I’m going to… I’m going to have to avoid mediation for a while.”

     “Why?”

     Of course she wouldn’t let it go without pressing. She was just too _good._ She was concerned, and good, and so damn earnest, and he couldn’t lie to her, not right now. He could obfuscate, he could divert, but even that would take too much from him. He would just have to find some way to make her understand how he felt, even when he couldn’t quite understand himself.

     “I tried, but it felt like—I could feel-- There was this _stillness...”_ he began. It was hard. It was hard to say these things that he could barely articulate. But she was asking him and he owed her more than he owed anyone.

     “It felt like I was back on the Astral Plane. I couldn’t… I couldn’t--” He stopped pacing and scrubbed his hand across his eyes.

     “Shiro. Shiro, I’m so sorry.” Allura’s voice was compassionate, made heavy with the weight of her empathy. It made him feel like garbage, like a brick tied to her ankle.

     “It’s fine,” he lied. “I’m going to have to unpack all this, this _shit_ that’s happened in the past few years eventually, but I can’t do it right now. Not here.” That much, at least, was true.

     He wiped his hand on his pants once more. It was dry now. He wrapped it back around the pull up bar and started over from the beginning of his set, punctuating each rep with a grunt

     “I think I understand,” Allura said after a few minutes, surprising him. He thought she had disconnected long ago. It startled him enough to drop him back down to the floor with a _thunk._

     “It sounds like you’re still exercising,” she continued. “When’s the last time you took a break?”

     “Taking a break right now,” Shiro said. He reached for a towel and ran it through his hair.

     “A real break, not just a pause,” Allura said.

      “No clue. Haven’t been keeping track since Keith pretty much barricaded me in here and told me not to come out until I’ve rested, but...” he trailed off.

     “But rest makes you feel like you’re back there,” She concluded for him.

     “Yeah. So, for now, pull-ups.”

     “Those aren’t making you tired?” she asked.

     “No, they are. Especially with just the one arm. I used to do shit like one armed pushup just to show off; now I don't really have a choice. It feels like I’m doing physio after waking up from a decades long coma. Yet when I lie down… I just can’t get tired enough. I feel like I’m ready to pass out sometimes, then…”

     Allura interrupted him before his mind could go too far down an unpleasant path.

     “Keith thinks you’re doing too much. I think so too. Your body needs time to build itself back up. Rest is an important part of that.”

     “I know that,” Shiro snorted.

     “Right. Of course you do. I need to…” Shiro could practically hear her casting about for an excuse to get out of one of the most awkward conversations he’s had since he died, “I need to consult something. I’ll talk to you later.”

     Shiro grunted in parting.

     “Sounds like it’s just you and me now, pull-up bar.”

     The bar reserved its opinion on the matter but Shiro couldn't help but feel it was judging him.

      

* * *

      

     Lance didn’t even bother to wait for Allura to call him next. The minute he saw her line was free, he opened a connection.

     “Lance!” she nearly wailed. “Meditation won’t work! What next?” Her distress made him distressed. He cried out in frustration.

     “Argh! I don’t know! Sleeping gas?”

     “We cannot _poison_ him to bed! Let’s just throw out as many ideas as we can, all at once. Just blurt out whatever makes you fall asleep quickly.” She said.

     “ Hwaaah. Okay,” Lance said, hunkering down in the root cellar of his mind for a category five brainstorm. “So, what makes me sleepy. I’m thinking: lullabies??”

     “Devotional services.”

     “Documentaries.”

     “Healing pods.”

     “Public radio. The BBC.”

     “The smell of _urlabe_ pies baking.”

     “Important tests that I absolutely can’t sleep through.”

     “ _Ghesnips.”_

     “I thought those were offensive?”

     “Y _ou’re_ offensive! Uh, uh uh...” the wheels in her head spun for traction, “Father’s lectures. Coran’s lectures _. Zarkon’s_ lectures!”

     “Chloroform. Cough syrup. Cough syrup with Chloroform in it.”

     “Massage. Parliament. High altitudes. Rooms that are slightly too warm.”

     “Overeating. Sorting things. Masturbation. Orgasm.”

     “The sound of wa—“ Allura’s mind ground to an abrupt halt before she could finish the sentence. “Wait. What were those last ones?”

     “Uhhh,” Lance’s stomach sank as he stalled.

     “Does that really work?” Allura asked.

     “Please forget I said that,” he squeaked in a voice so tiny that he couldn’t even recognize it as his own.

     “Lance! This is the only idea we’ve had that doesn’t rely on equipment or media that we don’t have!” She said. He could hear the ‘thunk’ of her fist hitting her instrument panel. He could smell the “eureka” in the air. He could taste misery.

     “Ugh. This is hell. I’m in hell.”

     “Lance!” She said urgently. “Just tell me! Does it work?”

     “Yeah, yeah, it works! Listen, when dudes cum it’s… there’s these things called endolphins, or whatever, and they…” This was hell and he was in it and he was in hell. “It just works, okay? But that’s obviously not going to work, because it’s Shiro, and--” Allura cut him off before he could give any of his thousands of perfectly good reasons.

     “Oh, this is it! It’s the perfect idea. Oh, thank you Lance!” She said, leaving him with his thoughts, his shame, and the beginnings of a truly weird boner.

      

* * *

      

      

     She was calling him again. Shiro signed and rocked back on his knees from where he was poised on the floor, mentally preparing himself for a set of push-ups. His arm was already trembling with exhaustion from the pull-ups, and he knew that he might be doing some serious damage by continuing to push himself. But it wasn't like he could stop, so he would just have to make peace with the fact that these  were just going to _suck_. He shook his head and instead steeled himself for another type of grueling exertion.

     He knew what would happen next. She’d try something or say something weird to make him feel better. It wouldn’t work. She’d feel bad, and he’d feel bad for making her feel bad. She’d stop talking to him for a while, then call back. Rinse, lather, repeat. He contemplated not accepting the comm and just feigning sleep. That would certainly make her happy.

     The call signal flashed before him, mocking him. He ignored it.

     The beeping sound seemed to drill into his ears. He could withstand it.

     The squirming in his chest, he could tolerate that too. He closed his eyes. Unbidden, an image flashed in his mind. He saw the expectant look on her face while she waited for his answer. He saw her face fall from anticipation, to confusion, to a sort of blank acceptance.

     He swore.

     He accepted the call.

     “Shiro, do you masturbate?” 

     “Holy HELL, Allura!” Shiro threw his hands in the air in shock, then looked guiltily around the room. Did Keith hear that? _Could_ Keith hear that?

     “When’s the last time you experienced orgasm?” she asked, still way too loud.

     “A… Princess! Lower your volume!” Shiro pleaded.

     “When is the last time you came?” she whispered.

     “Keith and Krolia are literally right outside the door,” Shiro hissed back. “Hell, the dog is probably right outside the door. What’s gotten into you?”

     “I was talking it over with Lance, and--”

     “You were… talking about jerking off… with Lance?”

     “Well… technically yes. But only in theoretical language! And we weren’t talking about ourselves, we were talking about you—but it’s not like we were _talking,_ talking about you!” she was babbling now. She was definitely babbling. “Though, I suppose, from a certain perspective, that’s exactly what we were doing, but--”

     “ _Allura,”_ Shiro interrupted. In her cockpit, Allura’s shoulders sagged in relief. Bless him for cutting her humiliating babble short. She knew where she had been heading with that sentence, and it was to certain disaster. She gathered her wits, and began again.

     “Masturbation is an effective relaxation technique for most humans, is it not? And you are no exception?”

     “I guess,“he said as he ran a hand through his hair in agitation. It was too fluffy in the back. How did his clone live this way? “But can you appreciate why it makes me uncomfortable that you’d be talking about that with Lance?”

     “We’re just concerned about you. And I told you, we weren’t talking _about_ you, technically, more like we were talking _around_ you or… or adjacent to you!”

     Shiro sighed. He did not appreciate the nuance.

     “You agree, though?” Allura asked.

     “With what?” He probably did not agree. There were many things about this conversation that he found disagreeable already, and it had only lasted for two minutes.

     “That orgasms relax you,” she pressed.

     “That’s an incredibly personal question,” he said stiffly. Hopefully if he sound offended and stodgy enough, she’d drop the subject altogether. She was an empathetic sort, surely she could hear how uncomfortable he was.

     “We’re just very worried about you, Shiro,” Allura said. Her voice did sound empathetic, but Shiro couldn’t help but feel like the empathy was manifesting in exactly the worst way.

      “We want you to feel better,” she continued. He sighed.

     “Yeah, but--”

     She didn’t let him continue.

     “I’d do anything, Shiro. Anything to make your life a little more bearable. You’re a good person. You don’t deserve to live in pain. You don’t deserve anything of what you’ve suffered. You deserve rest, and peace, and--”

     “Allura…” he couldn’t help saying, softly. He didn’t mean to interrupt her again, but something moved him to speak; to say her name as if it was a word of power in itself.

     “If I was there, I could touch you… I could help. In whatever ways I could, I would try to ease whatever pain I could reach. I know there are some wounds too deep, but the ones I could soothe, I would. I could make you feel good. I know I could.”

     “Allura, stop,” he said, voice barely over a whisper.

     “Is that wrong?” she asked. 

     “It’s just,” he sighed, “you’re going to give me the wrong idea. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

     “I know what I’m saying,” she said. She sounded so far away, even farther than the distance between the two lions.

     “You don’t know what you’re _offering,”_ Shiro insisted.

     “I know. I’ve touched every part of your soul, Shiro. I’ve held it in mine. I’ve carried you inside me. I know you like I’ve never known another person. So…” he could barely distinguish her voice from the hum machinery around him now. Then, with renewed strength she said, “So I know that you don’t have to live this way. I know I can help. I’ll ask you again, Shiro. Is that wrong?”

     Shiro felt a tug in the pit of his stomach. It felt as if few more pulls on it would undo the coil that he felt whenever he thought about her. He felt something unraveling, giving something else room to expand and blooming.

     “No. It’s not,” he said. “It’s not wrong, it’s just…”

     “Would you let me help you?” She asked. He felt another tug.

     “Allura.”

     “Please,” she said and the knot came free. Inside of himself, he could feel entropy start to reverse.

     “If… if it means that much to you,” he said quietly. Allura sighed in relief.

     “It does. Lay down, Shiro.”

     He began to protest again, not quite knowing why, but the softness in Allura’s voice turned steely.

     “I said lay _down.”_

     Shiro could feel the heat of a flush spread across his neck, down his chest, as he capitulated. He was already sitting on the floor, so all he had to do was lie back and try not to spontaneously combust.

     “Okay,” he said. The grate beneath him was cold, except for the parts that he’d been in contact with while exercising, and slick from his sweat. It combined several distinctly uncomfortable sensations with the spooling unease he was feeling emotionally into one great mass of discomfort.

     “Now. What do you like? What makes you feel good? Tell me,” she prompted.

     “Okay,” Shiro said, staring at the ceiling.

     Silence reigned.

     “Tell me _out loud,”_ Allura said with a sigh of impatience.

     “That wasn’t out loud?” Shiro asked. Allura sighed again. Shiro swallowed hard.

     “I… I kind of like…” he began, then trailed off again.

     “Speak!” Allura barked. His limbs jerked slightly in surprise and his mouth opened in an “O” of epiphany.

     “That!” he said quickly. “I like that! I like it when I don’t have to think. When someone takes the reins for a minute. I don’t have to be one step ahead all the time. I don’t have to be in the past. I’m just… I’m there.”

     “You like to be told what to do,” Allura said.

     “Yes,” Shiro said. So there it was. It was out there. He willed his limbs to relax. That was probably the hardest part over with. All downhill from here, he assured himself.

     Allura hummed, and said, “Do you mind if I open a video feed? I think I’ll know what to do if I can actually see you.”

     “Y.. yeah. You can,” he said after a slight hesitation.

     “Do you want to see me, also?”

     “Yeah.” The questions were getting easier. He didn’t even flinch when a view-port opened closer than he thought it would be. He stared at her.

      She looked less confident than he thought she would look. Her eyes were wide, nostrils flared. Her brow was slightly creased, and he could see the white of a tooth as it worried her lip. Somehow seeing her this way reassured him. She clearly didn’t know exactly what the fuck was going on between them, either. They were equals right now.

     Shiro waved at her weakly.

     “Hi,” he said. She blushed a color that would have been impossible for any human to achieve without highly pigmented makeup. Somehow that made him relax even more.

     “Hello, Shiro. You’re looking…” Her eyes slid over his bare torso. He had unzipped his suit and shoved it to just above his hip bones while he exercised, giving her a lot of flesh to rove over. Her eyes snapped back up to his face before she could become completely distracted.

     “Uh, moistened. You are looking very moistened,” She concluded, deliberately looking at a spot just over his shoulder on the floor. Shiro laughed.

     “Thanks,” he said. “I was working out.”

     “I suppose I don’t need to tell you to take off your top, then,” Allura said sardonically. Shiro tilted his head and chuckled and smiled in a way that Allura found that annoyingly endearing.

     “Yeah, I got that covered. Or uncovered, actually.”

     “Okay,” she said with a sobering shake of her head. She focused back on him, seeming to notice for the first time his position on the floor “You don’t look very comfortable,” she observed.

     “That would be because I’m uncomfortable,” Shiro laughed again. “Still kind of easing into this idea.”

     “Oh,” Allura said again. She needed to make him feel comfortable, but how? _How?_ Her thoughts seemed to get stuck every time she tried to formulate a plan, because to do so she had to look at him, and when she looked at him she had to notice how _nice_ he looked laying there. His stomach seemed segmented, which at first unpleasantly reminded her of some sort of annelid, but then she realized that those were his abdominal muscles that she was looking at. She decided that she liked how that looked. Those muscles moved interestingly when he moved, and just by looking at them she could almost imagine how they’d feel, flexing beneath her hands. She decided she liked that very much indeed.

     “Come on,” he said, breaking her concentration, “what’s wrong? You sounded a lot more sure just a bit ago”.

     “I don’t know where to go from here,” She admitted. “You skipped an entire _step,_ with the clothes. The clothes you aren’t wearing. You’ve got muscles down there. I can see them. You threw me off.”

     “Sorry,” Shiro said. He did not look sorry.

     “I was going say ‘put your hands up your shirt, and then you were going to put your hands under your shirt” she said, miming the action on an invisible torso before her.

     “I don’t have a shirt, but I could put the suit back on?” He suggested.

     “No, it wouldn’t be organic.”

     “You’re right. The fibers are synthetic,” he said. She snorted.

     “That’s not what I meant,” she said.

     “I know.”

     “Well, get off the floor.”

     “Yes, Princess.”

     “Get on that cot,” she commanded.

     “It’s about as comfortable as the floor, to be honest,” Shiro said as he obeyed.

     “Did I ask for your opinion?”

     “Sure didn’t,” he said as he settled in. He smiled at the view-screen, which seemed to go a long way in softening her annoyance. She blew a curl that had come loose from her bun out of her eyes, and smiled in return.

     “There,” She said. “Looking more comfortable already.” Shiro closed his eyes and hummed in agreement.

     “I’m feeling more comfortable,” he said. “Maybe because I can see you. I don’t have to guess what your intentions are or how you’re feeling. It’s all on your face.” He opened his eyes to look frankly into her own. His smile became more lopsided, almost distracted as he studied her.

     “Mhmmp,” Allura said articulately. She pressed her lips together to dampen the spread of her own smile. She meant to project a stern affect, and here he was ruining it by being charming and easy-going.

     “That blush, for instance, tells me that--” he continued. And here he was ruining it by being charming and easy-going and extremely obnoxious. Didn’t he know it was rude to point out involuntary coloration changes?

     “It tells you to shut up!” She snapped.

     “Does it?” Shiro said, with a curious tilt of his head.

     “Yes! It’s an Altean communication method! Don’t argue!” Shiro laughed, then wriggled his shoulders deeper into his cot, settling in for the long haul, as it were. He gave her time to collect herself while he adjusted his pillow and the blankets around himself.

     “Okay. Okay, I’m calm,” Allura said, after a few moments. Her cheeks were still a fascinatingly inhuman color, but it was starting to blend back into her normal complexion. “I’m calm, collected, cool. I’m absolutely cool.”

     “Do you know you’re speaking out loud right now?” Shiro asked.

     “YES!” Allura blurted. “Everything I do is intentional! _Everything!”_

     “The blush is getting worse again. That’s the shut up signal, yeah?”

     “Yes! Lay back!”

     “I am laying back.”

     “I knew that!”

     “Allura,” Shiro said seriously, finally taking pity on her. “Don’t be so tense. Center yourself. Take a breath.”

     She did as he asked, breathing in deeply and willing her face back into the right color.

     “Close your eyes. Put your hand on your stomach. Try to focus on how your breathing makes it rise and fall.”

     “Mmm.” She felt some of the nervous tension leave her shoulders as she focused on his words and her breath. He really was good at this.

     “Do you feel it?”

     “Yes,” she said quietly.

     “Good. Now, slide your hand a bit lower. Catalog every change of sensation. How your muscles move as you breathe, how your body warms your hand.” Her lips parted and her breathing deepened. Something was happening to her as she listened to his voice. “Notice how your stomach curves as you pass your hand over your belt and reach lower. Let it roam over your...”

     “Wait a minute!” She said, finally catching on. Shiro laughed in delight as her eyes flew open. She fixed him with a stare that did absolutely nothing to dampen his mirth.

     “Oh, you! I’m supposed to be the one telling you what to do. You said you like that!” She said with an annoyed shake of her head. The _gall!_

     “Well, maybe I like telling you what to do, too,” Shiro said easily.

     “You…” She said, but she couldn’t sustain her annoyance for long. He really _was_ good at this.

     “Come on, move your hand lower. Now, curl your fingers in a little bit for me. Then relax them. Do it again. Press, and relax--” Allura squirmed slightly and bit her lips as she touched herself like he told her to.

     “Mmh! Sh… Shiro… this isn’t fair. You aren’t getting anything from this.” It took a concerted effort for her to still her hand in defiance of his directions.

     “Oh, I’m getting something,” He said with a short laugh. “Could you take off your armor for me?”

     Allura paused, suddenly unsure.

      “What if there’s an emergency? Or if someone opens a comm channel?” She asked.

     “I’m sure Blue won’t mind putting blocking non-essential communication and putting emergency calls on audio only, right?”

     Allura nodded shakily as she pressed the right settings on her console.

     “Okay,” she said. She wasted no more time on unfastening her bracers and gloves, before pressing the hidden seals and divesting herself of her breastplate and gardbraces. Her belt, cuisses and greaves followed, until she was left in just her under-suit. Shiro hummed in approval at her speed. If there’s one thing paladins learned quickly, it was how to armor up and down as quick as possible, and she had the benefit of ten thousand years experience with Altean armor.

     “Now, unzip your suit. Just to right above your hips. Yeah, that’s it.”

     This, Allura took her time with. She made sure she had his absolute attention as she searched for the hidden clasp around her neck, that held the head of the zipper in place. She slowly dragged the zipper down her body, stopping just under the smooth skin of her abdomen, where the belly button would be on a human. Instead of a naval, a cluster of markings glowed softly. Shiro watched them for a moment, before sliding his eyes back to hers.

     “Do you like this?” She asked, playing with the zipper and drawing his attention back down. She watched his eyes follow her hand as she dragged it up and down her body, never quite pulling the zipper lower than those markings.

     “Yeah,” he said simply. She rewarded his honest answer by pushing her suit slightly off one shoulder, not quite enough to expose her breast but so, so painfully close to it.

     “But you aren’t trying to touch yourself,” she observed.

     “Not yet,” Shiro said, lifting his eyes from the path of her hands, to her face. “It’s called delayed gratification. Besides, you haven’t told me to.”

     “I think your gratification has already had a delay of a few years. Put your hand on your groin, Shiro.”

     He obeyed with a suppressed moan. She pushed her suit completely off one shoulder, but her forearm still mostly obscured her breast. She stared at him until he started rubbing himself under her gaze, and let her arm fall away from her shoulder. Her nipple was visible to him for a just a short moment before she crossed her other arm over it to push down the other side of her suit. But as she gripped the fabric, a thought stopped her.

     “Wait. That _is_ where your primary genitals are, correct?” she asked.

     “Huh?” Shiro said, blinking in confusion. Allura frowned. She crossed her arms in thought, which pushed them up in interesting ways but Shiro still rather wished she’d get on with the strip tease.

     “It occurs to me that I don’t know where your secondary or tertiary ones are, either,” she said.

     “What the—Allura, humans only have the one set. We have sexual characteristics that are secondary and tertiary, but those are more like breasts and beards and not, like, extra organs.”

     “Beards are a sex organ? Oh, my. You must have been absolutely _scandalized_ by Coran’s mustache. All brazen and,” She lowered her voice to a sensuous purr, “out there.”

     Shiro laughed again. “I said characteristics, Allura, not organs.”

     “So your penises all come from the same spot?”

     Shiro’s hand, which had been idling stroking his lower abdomen, came to an abrupt stop as he considered the ramifications of that sentence.

     “I am concerned by that plural,” he said. Allura scoffed.

     “Well, obviously a man of your size has more than one.”

     Shiro wasn’t looking at her face on the view screen anymore. He was looking at the ceiling of his partition in the Black Lion. His  expression was troubled as his mind spun its wheels, then he squeezed his eyes closed, as if to block out any additional thoughts that might accidentally occur.

     “I am just going to not think about that as long as possible,” he said. Then his eyes sprung open in defeat. “Nope. Now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

     He shifted in his cot, propping himself up on his elbow to look at the view screen one more.

     “Is there actually a direct correlation between body size and number of penises for most species?” He asked.

     “Of course,” Allura said patiently. “Lotor had three. That was because he was a very slight man, for a Galra.”

     Shiro felt himself collapse back into a prone position, laid low by the revelation.  He interrogated the ceiling of the Lion with his gaze. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be any secrets written up there about how he should navigate this minefield of a conversation.

     “I...” he began. “I can’t know that. I can’t know that Lotor had three dicks. I can’t know that you know that he had three dicks, and somehow that three dicks is fewer than usual for Galra. But somehow, now I do. I know all of those things”

     Allura’s voice was soft, compassionate. He knew that if he were to look over there he’d see an expression of understanding, which just annoyed him. “Only having one is nothing to be ashamed of, Shiro,” She said.

     “Obviously! Does this mean you have multiple vaginas, or?”

     Allura took the question as a prompt. Shiro’s eyes once again snapped to the view-screen as he heard the sound of her fully unzipping her suit. His lips pursed together as inch by inch, more flesh was revealed, until she reached her groin. She shifted her hips forward and pulled the suit down to her upper thighs, fully exposing herself to him. Geometric patterns and softly glowing markings decorated her collarbone and sternum, with more flowing down her stomach. Their shimmering light seemed to direct the eye to one vital point.

     One vital, curiously featureless point.

     “Oh my god,” he moaned. “You have _zero vaginas_.”

     “Don’t be silly,” Allura laughed. She ran a finger around where the vulva would be on a human, where on her there was a distinct lack of mons. As she stroked lightly against her skin, the flesh seemed to darken in color, and engorge. She moaned as she circled a finger slowly, sensuously in a figure eight pattern. Shiro watched, fascinated, as a furrow that had been too tightly sealed for him to notice before started to part. Allura shuddered as the furrow expanded.

     “Holy… shit. Did you… just...” he shook his head. “Did you grow one?”

     “Don’t be absurd,” She said through her distraction “We just...ahh. We require adequate stimulation before our genitals…before they….mmm.”

     “I think I get it,” Shiro said, his fascination warring with a sense of uncanny unease and more than a bit of excitement.

     “Show me how yours works,” Allura commanded. Her fingers still stroked up and down her vulva, which was looking more and more like human genitalia as the flesh expanded. Shiro didn’t waste any time in pushing down his under-suit further. The suit was too tight for underwear, though thankfully reinforced enough to also not require a cup, so there wasn’t to slow him down other than the shaking his own hand as he fumbled with his penis. After a slight struggle, he wrested it free of the impossibly tight suit. He gave it a few strokes to hasten its hardening.

     “I think it works the same way yours does,” he said. “We get turned on, bloods starts rushing southward, then...”

     Allura slowed her movements to lean forward, closer to her view screen. She seemed fascinated by the sight before her.

     “Oh!” she said with a squeak that Shiro found incongruously adorable. “It’s growing! Of course you don’t need multiple genitals if it can just _grow_ automatically, like that! How fascinating. Can you control it?”

     Shiro shook his head with a small laugh. His hips undulated minutely as he rubbed himself. He always had difficulty keeping them still, even at this stage. It had made getting himself off subtly its own sort of torture when he was younger, having to try and limit his movements when his body instinctively wanted to _rut_ from the very start. So, yeah, control was an issue. As was the precum he produced, which was sure to leave evidence on his clothes and sheets even if he was able to orgasm neatly.

     “I can kind of control it, in a way?” He said then shook his head again. “But not nearly enough.”

     “Fascinating! ” Allura repeated, as if she had just found something incredibly interesting growing in a petri dish. She leaned forward more. Gravity, her posture, and her unclothed state conspired to give Shiro a truly spectacular view of her cleavage. He moaned at the sight.

     “Normally I wouldn’t call myself anything like a tit man, but _damn, Allura,”_ he said with a whine. Allura took her hands off her mons to play with her breasts, to a moan of approval.

     “Oh, what do you usually like?” She asked, weighing one breast in a hand as the other teased a nipple.

      “I’m more of an ass--nng” Shiro began, but was cut off by his own grunt of pleasure. Allura giggled.

     “You’re an ass?”

     “--Man,” Shiro gasped. His voice dropped into something that bypassed sensual altogether and landed in theatrical, “Ass-man. _‘T_ _hough it be not written down, yet/ forget not that I am an ass-man._ ’” He quoted. Allura’s hands stilled, her head tilted in confusion. Shiro shook his head with an embarrassed grin that she found annoyingly endearing.

     “Sorry. I’m getting there too fast. I’m trying to distract myself,” he said.

     “You’re distancing yourself from orgasm by speaking strangely?”

     “By remembering quotes from a play I was in, once.” He said with another smile and she was overcome by a painful, acute wave of longing. She wanted to be the same room with him if only so she could swallow that smile whole. “I’ll have you know that’s a quote by one of our world’s finest bards. We even call him, ‘The Bard’.”

     “Oh. That’s so sad,” she said in mock disappointment, then leaned forward, squeezing her breasts together with a deliberate sensuality. “Tell me another one.”

      Shiro closed his eyes, and smiled. The movements of his hips slowed to almost a complete stop as he ransacked his brain for another quote, though he continued to work his hand down his shaft.

     “ _'Against my will I am sent to bid you come’,_ ” he said, opening one eye to wink at her. Allura considered this statement thoughtfully.

     “There's a double meaning in that,” She said. Shiro laughed.

     “I’d recite some dark lady sonnets but they’re hardly complimentary, most of the time. I don’t want to insinuate that your breath smells or anything.”

     “Well, we can’t have that. Is that what passes for seduction on earth?”

     “Strangely enough, yeah. Shall I instead compare thee to a summer’s day?”

     “I don’t think you shall. Summer in Altea has way too many molten lava storms to make a favorable comparison.”

     “I see. Thou art more lovely and temperate for sure.”

     “You smooth talker,” Allura said with a fond smile, then seemed to realize that she was in the middle of something. She renewed her attentions to her own breasts, pinching one nipple with a small, sharp moan. Shiro’s answering moan was louder. The muscles on his arm corded out as if were a physical struggle to keep his strokes slow and measured.

     “You like that, too?” Allura said, low and throaty, “And yet you said you were a man of ass?”

     “’ _Oh, that I had been writ down an ass-man!’_ ” Shiro declared. Allura laughed, and her smile grew wicked as she decided to take this recently uncovered intel and use it against him. She shifted from her seated position to kneel upright on her chair.

     She tugged her flight-suit down to just above her knees, and turned to present her backside for his consideration. One hand went to the back of her chair, to steady herself, as the other one went back between her legs. She spread those legs as best as she could, with the flight suit around her legs and the dimensions of the chair seat hampering full range of motion. Her back curved as she canted her hips to her best advantage. She wanted to make sure he could see her tease herself.

     She glanced over her shoulder to gauge his reaction. His mouth parted, breaths coming harder and grip tightening on himself as his attention focused itself on her ass, her hips, and the fingers moving along the opening beneath it. So far, so good. She decided.

     “Christ, Allura,” he moaned.

      “You like this view better?” she asked demurely.

     “This is great. The other view was great too. Not a bad seat in the house.” He laughed, then groaned as his hips snapped forward on their own accord. He was turned on enough that even his distraction tactics and legendary self control were becoming ineffective. “Ah… It’s been too long. I don’t even think Shakespeare can help me now.”

     “Mmm. I have an idea, then. Let’s see how long you can last without touching yourself. Hands off, Shirogane.”

     “Hands are already off,” he joked shakily, tilting his head to indicate his empty socket while not slowing the movement of his remaining arm in the slightest, “Literally.”

     “ _Hand_ off,” Allura corrected.

     Sweat beaded on Shiro’s forehead. “You’re killing me, Princess.”

     “Hand _off,_ Shiro,” she repeated. “Look, I’ll take my hands off, too.”

     And she did. She put her other hand on the back of the chair, but after a moment's’ consideration, folded down an arm rest that had been hidden in the chair’s body. Shiro tilted his head as he watched. She could have sworn she heard him curse and say ‘how long have these things had armrests’, but she ignored it. She freed one of her legs from her suit completely, then cast another coy glance over her shoulder, making sure she had his full attention before spreading her labia.

     Then she slowly, ever- so-slowly, settled back, nestling the smooth, cool surface of the armrest between her spread pussy lips.

     She gasped at the difference in temperature and paused for a moment, wriggling her hips and fidgeting in place to allow the material to warm to body temperature. After a moment’s worth of acclimation, she slid forward, moaning as movement against the armrest stimulated her flesh. She paused for a moment as her pelvis hit the back of the chair, shuddering, before sliding back. She bent backward at the apex of the motion, throwing her head back and giving Shiro an upside-down view of her flushed face, the sinew in her neck, and the swell of the top of her breasts.

      Shiro groaned and fisted the hand that she had forbidden from wrapping around his cock into his hair. Then Allura’s head fell back towards the chair, away from him, as her hips slid forward again. Her movements quickened as she rubbed herself back and forth.

     “Fuck, Allura,” Shiro moaned. She turned her upper body again to watch him, draping herself against the back of the chair even as she ground her pussy against it. She bit her lips at the sight of his flushed face, his contracted abdominal muscles, the quivering of his lips and of his cock, and tension in his biceps as his fingers flexed in his hair.

     “Tell me what you’re feeling,” she prompted. Shiro snorted in agitation.

     “I don’t know what I’m feeling. Hot. Frustrated. Desperate. It aches. It feels good. I feel awful. I feel amazing. Everything all at once,” he said. His eyes fell shut in frustration then they instantly snapped back open, unwilling to miss even the smallest of movements and most minute changes in her expression.

     “Tell me what you want,” Allura breathed.

     “I want to...” his voice was barely above a whisper, “I want to touch myself. Please, let me.”

     “No.”

     “Allura!” He cried. He couldn’t help it anymore, he was wreathing. His hips were lifting off the cot to thrust into thin air. Allura took pity on his distress but was not yet about to show mercy.

     “There are other ways for you to stimulate yourself,” she said. “Are you not a resourceful person, Shiro?”

     “Fuck!” Shiro cast a quick glance around the room before groaning, then rolled over on his cot. After. He bunched up the pillow and sheets on his cot into one mass, then roughly shoved them under his hips. Now laying on his stomach, he looked up to see the approval on Allura’s face. With a moan, he began fucking into the lump of bedclothes.

     “Good boy,” she said. Shiro’s cheeks burned.

     “God…” he said. “Phone sex. Humping my pillow. Trying to keep it down so my roommates don’t hear... I feel like I’m some fucking hormonal teenager in a garrison dorm again.”

     “Do you like that feeling?” Allura said, stilling the moments of her hips. Was she going too far? Was this verging into humiliation? Shiro groaned.

     “No,” he said, then, “Yes. Fuck. Right now, in this solitary instance, I love it.” He pushed himself up from his prone position, onto his knees, gripping the lump of bedclothes as If they were a pair of hips and continuing to thrust into them.

      “But there are better feelings out there”, he continued through his grunts of frustration, effort and pleasure.

     “Tell me about them,” Allura said breathlessly.

     “Like you… you’d feel amazing right now. I know it. You’d be so wet—so wet, I can hear it now, you’re so wet-- so sweet...” He was babbling helplessly. Allura moaned, hiding her face in the arms she had draped over the back of the chair. Even through the mix of embarrassment and over-stimulation she couldn’t avert her eyes for long, and soon arousal and temptation had her turning back to watch him.

     “I want you here,” he said. Their eyes met through the view screen and she couldn’t look away now, even if she wanted to. Her hips were moving frantically against the chair now, her mouth open and breaths coming in heavy pants. She imagined what it would feel like if he was pumping into her instead of a mass of fabric, if she was rubbing herself against his cock instead of the impersonal, composite material of the arm rest. She moaned helplessly, desperately.

     “Yes!” She cried, “What… What would you do if we were together right now?”

     He growled and she whimpered in response. She was so close, so close and the _things_ that noise did to her...

     “I’d throw you off that chair. I’d …I’d find out how wet you are, first hand. I wouldn’t be able to help tasting you. I’d … no, I’d have you back in the chair for that. You’d be there, legs spread…”

     Allura took his wish as her command. She threw herself back in the seat of her chair, opening her legs to offer herself to him. She spread her pussy so he could see her, how wet she was, how deep and rich her coloring had gotten. How the markings that lead the eye to her core pulsed with light and arousal and need.

     “Like that, yeah,” he said. “Just. Fucking. Like. That.” He punctuated every word with a thrust, but he couldn’t get the resistance, the friction that he needed. He cast the lump of bedclothes aside. There was a small wet spot in the middle of it, physical evidence of his ardor.

     He rocked back off his ass, and mirrored her position on his cot. His legs dangled off it, spread wide, giving her a direct view of what he was about to do as he wrapped his hand back around his cock. He milked himself slightly first, building back up a slick of precum. When that wasn’t quick enough, he spat in his palm to provide extra lubrication, then fisted it around himself.

     “Tell me what to do,” Allura said.

     “I want to see you fuck yourself,” Shiro said; low, quiet, in a tone of voice would broker no defiance. “Slowly at first.”

     Allura obeyed, wriggling slightly as she finally penetrated herself with a single finger. She bit her lip, expecting pain or discomfort at first, but was relieved when she found neither. Shiro nodded in approval.

     “Just like that. Just enough to warm yourself up back up. In and out. Yes, like that. How does it feel?”

     Allura moaned in response. It only took a few more strokes for her to add another finger, eager to build herself back up to the peak she had almost reached moments before.

     “Mmm. It feels good.”

     “Not as good as it could feel,” Shiro said, confidently. “If I could be there, touching you.”

     Allura shifted in her seat, lifting her hips to allow a better angle of access to her fingers and inadvertently giving Shiro a better view.

      He tilted his head, expression rapt, and licked his lips before saying, “Try another finger.”

     Allura obeyed, but Shiro shifted forward in concern when he heard the break in her voice and her moans as she did so.

     “A...ah…”

     “Tight fit?” he asked, trying not to moan as he imagined it.

     “It will get better,” She said with a shake of her head. Her eyes squeezed shut as she concentrated on relaxing around her fingers. She didn’t want to waste any more time. She wanted to cum _now._ Her eyes flew back open as she heard Shiro’s t _ut_ of disapproval.

     “Take it out. Take your time. There’s no rush.”

     She tilted her head and gazed pointedly at the swollen head of his cock and the veins that she could swear she saw throbbing in anticipation. Shiro cleared his throat and removed his hand from himself, waving in them in the air to try to convince her of his lack of urgency.

     “I can wait. Take your time,” he repeated. Allura looked at him a moment longer, before nodding. She let her eyes flutter close again, as she removed the third finger and worked the first two inside of her. Her mouth fell open again as her actions slowly, ever so slowly increased in speed. Her strokes became deeper, the motions smoother. Soon, she pushed the third finger back inside and whimpered, this time with more pleasure than discomfort.

     “Looks like you’re getting used to it,” he said. “Good, because I’d be bigger.”

     Allura whimpered again, her voice fluttering between whine and moan. The glow and flush of her markings intensified, as she valiantly tried to master herself. She would _not_ start rutting like a wild beast just because that was the sexiest damn thing she’d heard in her entire life. She would _not_ fall apart just thinking about him bending her over, taking her, stretching her just shy of the point of pain but not any further than that, because he’d be so careful, so good... She opened one eye and smiled shakily.

     “How do you know,” she said in a querulous voice, “that it’s not just… perspective… that makes you look bigger?”

     “How do you know,” he countered, wrapping his hand back around his penis and running his fingers lightly along its full length in demonstration, “that it isn’t? Do you want me to stop and borrow a ruler from Keith?”

     Allura shook her head with an unsteady laugh.

     “No, I believe you. You… you’d be so much bigger… If you were here,” she said through the haze of pleasure.

     “That’s flattering,” Shiro said, placated.

     “You’d fill me so much more… Mmm. Shiro!” She began thrusting in and out of herself with more confidence, filling both of their cockpits with obscene, wet sounds and enthusiastic moans.

     “Do you hear that? That sounds so good,” Shiro said. He was making his own noises, small grunts of effort and slaps of flesh on flesh as he pulled at himself.

     “It’s embarrassing,” She said.

     “No, it isn’t. Your voice is beautiful, Allura. I want to hear it. I want to be right there. I want to hear every tiny noise, the moans you try to hold in, the sound of your wet pussy. I want to feel your breath on my neck and your warmth on my cock. I want to know what you taste and smell like--” Shiro cut off with some effort. Once he started he felt like he couldn’t stop; he had to tell her everything he was feeling and imagining. If he didn’t cut himself off here, he might say more than he was willing to admit even to himself.

     Allura had no such compunctions. “I want you to know! Oh, Shiro!” She cried. His stomach tensed, his hips snapped up to meet his fist at a furious rate. He wished--not for the first or the the third or the hundredth time that day--that he had his other arm back. He’d coat the fingers of his other hand with saliva, if he did, before reaching down to press against his asshole. The added sensation would be enough to almost send him to heaven. He'd just have to make due for now.

                 Allura was fucking herself hard enough now for him to hear the slap of her palm against her pubis as she slammed her finger inside, adding another dimension to the squelching noises of her natural lubrication. That made up for some of his frustration, while providing its own unique torture.

     “I want to hold you down and make you cum again and again. I want to feel your teeth on my shoulder. I want you to pin me and use me,” he panted, “I want to fuck your cunt, your ass. I want you to fuck my ass. I want to feel your lips around me, I want to eat you out until you can’t even move. I want to fuck you to sleep at night. I want to fuck you awake in the morning. I want to hear you _scream_ —fuck, look at you. Are you gonna cum? Cum for me, baby.”

     “Shiro!” was all she could cry before her muscles contracted in pleasure, bending her back into an almost agonizing looking curve. Her legs shook, straining to hold her upright as waves of pleasure robbed them of their strength.

     “Allura! I can’t hold back any more, oh fuck fuck _fuck_!” Shiro cried, but she was too far gone to notice. Her body was still twitching with aftershocks as he came, swearing and sweating and making a mess of his temporary accommodations.

     Allura’s breasts heaved as her muscles relaxed, depositing her bonelessly in the seat of her lion. Even confined in its bun, her hair was a mess. Strands of it were plastered across her forehead, while other errant curls lay limp and damp on her neck. Her lips were swollen from her biting and worrying them, and the seat underneath her was damp with her release. She looked utterly debauched, helpless, beautiful. Shiro couldn’t tear his eyes away, even as the rest of his body relaxed into a post-orgasmic stupor.

     “Allura… fuck…”

     Allura tugged her suit back up weakly; some faint, ingrained feeling of propriety compelling her to redress even through her exhaustion. Shiro didn’t even bother. His arm felt like a limp noodle.

     “I’m wrung out. Holy shit. I don’t know if I can even clean up after that.”

     Allura smiled peacefully, beatifically. A feeling swelled in Shiro’s chest, the same one he felt when he saw the sun rise after a quiet night. It was a sense of peace, of awe at something so much grander than himself. He felt like he’d do anything for that smile. It gave him the energy to at least wipe the cum off his stomach with his hand and clumsily pull his suit back up over his hips. He stared dumbly at his hand, not quite knowing what to do next. He settled on wiping it on the sheets he had had made a mess of earlier.

     “You’re gorgeous,” Allura said quietly. Shiro could only manage a bashful smile.

     “I feel like I can sleep for days,” he said. Allura stirred, stretching sinuously before settling down to a more comfortable position.

     “So sleep,” she said, with her voice barely louder than a whisper. Then she grinned, wickedly, and said, “I’ll just have to think of a suitable punishment for you touching yourself without my permission later.”

     “Aha,” Shiro chuckled. “Busted.”

     “It was difficult not to notice,” Allura said. Shiro made a small noise of agreement, eyes fluttering closed. He felt around the sheets that he had just wiped his hands on, turned them out so the mess wouldn’t brush against his skin, then pulled them back around himself.

     “That’s unsanitary,” Allura observed.

     “Mmm,” was all Shiro could say in reply. He could clean them later.

     “Do you need anything else?”

     “No. Allura… Thank you. This was weird but…” he shook his head. “I didn’t know I needed this kind of weirdness.”

      “Sleep well, Shiro,” Allura said. He could hear the smile in her voice and picture the tenderness in her expression. He held that image in his mind as he drifted off into a dreamless slumber.

      

      

* * *

      

     Keith sat in the Black Lion’s cockpit, stomach reeling in absolute discomfort.

     “This has been the most awkward experience of my entire life,” he said.

     “Taking into account how awkward you are normally… that’s saying a hell of a lot,” Lance’s voice came through on a comm channel, from his own throne of suffering in the Red Lion.

     “You could have prevented this,” Keith accused.

     “Yeah, well! So could you! If you would have just asked me for help in the first place instead of just expecting Allura to wave a magic wand and fix everything like usual! And you didn’t _have_ to call me in the middle of it so I could _listen_!”

     “I didn’t know you could hear it! I needed emotional support! You could have hung up at any time!”

     “I couldn’t have hung up any more than people could have looked away from the Hindenburg!”

     Keith groaned in frustration. Sure, he had fucked up, but that was _what he does._ You can’t get mad at a bird for singing, and you can’t get mad at him for making a bad situation worse.

     “I didn’t know this would happen! I think she’d ask _you_ for help when I asked _her f_ or help! And I didn’t think you’d tell her, ‘oh, _obviously_ Allura, phone sex is the answer!’”

     “I don’t sound like that!” Lance protested, “And how was I supposed to know she’d take that idea—which I didn’t give her in the first place—and run with it!”

     Keith dragged a hand down his face and said, “I didn’t even know Shiro _liked_ girls.” He could hear a muffled slap on the other end of the comm, as if Lance’s hand had just made a contact with his own face a little more enthusiastically than necessary.

     “Me neither! What if he’s, like, exclusively attracted to aliens?”

     “That would mean Adam was an alien,” Keith paused in consideration, “which he might have been.”

     “You know what kills me, though? All this time I figured, ‘oh I don’t have to worry about Shiro, obviously he won’t be the one to sweep Allura off her feet.’ I thought _you_ would be my competition. Imagine, you!”

     “Imagine, me,” Keith repeated, his voice a bleak monotone.

     “Of course, I didn’t know about your preferences back then, either,” Lance continued.

     “I don’t prefer anything,” Keith said.

     “I know that _now!”_

     “It sounded like it was Allura doing the sweeping, anyway.”

     “All this time!” Lance bemoaned. “All this time, she was a sweeper! We never suspected!”

     “And I never expected the lions to have such poor soundproofing,” Keith said miserably.

     “Okay, listen. Mistakes were made. Dirty talk was done. The Black Lion was jizzed in,” Lance ignored Keith’s soul-deep groan of agony, “and I might never be able to sit in Blue’s pilot seat again. We’re all just going to have to accept this and move on with our lives. Then we’re gonna have to make sure Shiro and Allura never speak to each other again while I’m in earshot because otherwise I am going to have some _very confusing and inconvenient reactions._ ”

     “You’re right,” Krolia said, startling them both when she emerged from an access panel in the cockpit floor. She had exiled herself to one of the maintenance shafts a while ago. Just for basic maintenance, she had said at the time, but now Keith suspected she knew what was going to happen as soon as her Galra hearing had picked up Shiro’s uneven breathing. She must have figured the noise of machinery would block out the noise coming from Shiro’s temporary quarters, and from the lack of agony on her face, it appeared that she was right.

     “Starting tomorrow,” she continued, “maybe it’s best that he sleeps in the Blue lion for a few days.”

      ** _“No!”_**

      


End file.
